The Greens Vorarlberg

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The Greens - The Green Alternative Vorarlberg
State party leader Johannes Rauch
Club chairman Daniel Zadra
Country Managing Director Jessica Boesch
Headquarters Deuringstrasse 3
6900 Bregenz
Seats in state parliaments
7/36

( LTW 2019 )
Website vorarlberg.gruene.at

Die Grünen Vorarlberg (officially Die Grünen - Die Grüne Alternative Vorarlberg ) is the Vorarlberg regional organization of the Austrian party Die Grünen - Die Grüne Alternative .

The Greens of Vorarlberg have been represented in the Vorarlberg state parliament since 1984 and have provided seven out of 36 members since the last state election in 2019 . In addition, as a coalition partner of the Vorarlberg People's Party , they have been represented in a black-green coalition government since 2014 and thus also a ruling party there.

history

State elections 1984–2019
15%
10%
5%
0%

Green beginnings: First state parliament candidacy in 1984

As in other regions and countries, the beginnings of the Greens in Vorarlberg were shaped by disputes over political goals and structures. As with many other start-ups, the founding generation did not see itself as a party, but as a movement. The focus of the debates was the question of whether and to what extent their orientation should be bourgeois-conservative or left-wing society-changing (“alternative”).

The representatives of the alternative approach came from various social movements of ecological resistance against large projects such as the Zwentendorf nuclear power plant or the Hainburg barrage, from the peace movement, from the women's movement, from youth and cultural initiatives ("Flint", Randspiele, Wäldertage ...), from the Vorarlberg teachers' initiative or research initiatives such as the Malin Society, which worked on the National Socialist regional history.

The representatives of the bourgeois-conservative approach stood in a Christian tradition, felt in an ecological sense, but also in the context of church sexual morality, committed to the preservation of creation (" World Federation for the Protection of Life ").

These two directions were politically represented by the  Alternative List (AL) and the  United Greens (VGÖ). Before the state elections in 1984 they formed  the AL-VGÖ alliance and were the first green group in Austria to join a state parliament. With an election result of 13% of the vote and four seats, the electoral alliance even overtook the FPÖ and became the third strongest force in the state parliament. The top candidate of the Alternative List, the Bregenzerwald farmer Kaspanaze Simma , who caused a sensation in the election campaign with an unconventional style, played a key role in this success  .

Fragmentation in the state elections in 1989

The alliance between the Alternative List and the United Greens concluded for the 1984 state election fell apart during the legislative period, which in turn increased tensions between the conservative VGÖ and the Alternative List. The chairman of the AL / VGÖ state parliament club, Manfred Rünzler, received public attention, who financed his political activities and an office for many years after leaving the state parliament with unused funds from the state's party and club funding. This procedure was not illegal, because there was no law on the promotion of political parties in Vorarlberg.

After the Green Alternative with the top candidate Freda Meißner-Blau had entered the National Council in 1986 and this new party had been constituted throughout Austria, it entered the Vorarlberg  state election in 1989 under the name  Green Alternative Vorarlberg  . With the top candidate Brigitte Flinspach , the Green Alternative Vorarlberg achieved 5.18% and made it into the state parliament with two mandates, while the  United Greens, under the name Die Grünen Vorarlbergs , narrowly missed the move with 4.91%.

The AL top candidate from 1984, Kaspanaze Simma, had not applied on either of the two green lists and therefore left the state parliament after a period.

Brief consolidation

In the  1994 state elections  , Kaspanaze Simma ran as the top candidate for the Green Alternative Vorarlberg, which won a seat with 7.76% of the vote and regained club status. Under the name of the Green Citizens List, a group from the United Greens also ran for this state election, but they only received 1.57% of the vote and remained well below the 5% threshold. In addition to Kaspanaze Simma, Brigitte Flinspach and  Christian Hörl represented  the Greens in the state parliament during this legislative period.

Renewed quarrels

On January 17, 1997, the delegates of the regional assembly elected the Rankweiler councilor  Johannes Rauch  as the new board spokesman for the Vorarlberg Greens.  Christian Hörl was elected as the top candidate for the 1999 state elections, while Kaspanaze Simma finally said goodbye to the state parliament. After another dispute about direction, the Greens lost almost two percent of the votes and the third mandate. After the top candidate Hörl resigned, the Feldkirch city councilor Sabine Mandak  and Johannes Rauch represented the Greens in the Vorarlberg state parliament.

Stability and upward trend

After Sabine Mandak had succeeded in 2002 as the top candidate for the National Council election with 14.5% for the first time in Vorarlberg's basic mandate and switched to the National Council, the Greens broke new ground in the run-up to the 2004 state elections with new actors and a pointedly oppositional campaign strategy with 10.2% and four mandates - in addition to Johannes Rauch, Katharina Wiesflecker , Karin Fritz and Bernd Bösch - brought the desired success.

This trend continued. In the  state elections in 2009  , the Vorarlberg Greens were even able to  overtake the SPÖ Vorarlberg for the first time  and with 10.58% of the votes they became the third strongest force in the  XXIX. Vorarlberg State Parliament . With the Green MP Vahide Aydın , a woman of Turkish origin from Vorarlberg entered the state parliament for the first time.

For the first time in the state government

In the  2014 election  , the Greens made strong gains and secured third place with 17.14% of the vote. They were the only parties represented in the state parliament to win votes and achieved the best result in their history to date. Following the election, the party and party chairman Johannes Rauch entered into government negotiations with the Vorarlberg People's Party, which resulted in the inauguration of the first black-green coalition government in Vorarlberg on October 15. As a regional councilor in the Wallner II regional government, Johannes Rauch was   responsible for environmental and climate protection, public transport and mobility management, cycling infrastructure, waste management, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering as well as IT. Regional Councilor Katharina Wiesflecker took over the social affairs, women, care, child and youth welfare and toddler care departments.

After the state elections in 2019 , in which the Greens were able to easily gain and with their historically best result again became the second-strongest party in Vorarlberg for the first time, the black-green government coalition with the ÖVP was continued as the Wallner III state government .

literature

  • Anna Rösch-Wehinger: The Greens in Vorarlberg: From the social movements to the party. Tyrolean Studies on History and Politics 10, Studienverlag, Innsbruck 2009, ISBN 978-3-7065-4650-8 .
  • Wolfgang Weber : Wood shavings. State election campaigns, parties and politicians in Vorarlberg from 1945 to 1969. Series of publications by the Rheticus Society 43, Feldkirch 2004, ISBN 3-900866-79-1 .
  • Ferdinand Karlhofer: Parties and political competition . In: Peter Bußjäger / Ferdinand Karlhofer / Günther Pallaver (eds.): Vorarlberg's political landscape . Studienverlag, Innsbruck 2010, ISBN 978-3-7065-4649-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Joint list AL / VGÖ
  2. ^ Election result of the Green Alternative Vorarlberg
  3. ^ Klaus Plitzner: Entry of the "Greens" into the state parliament. In: Land Vorarlberg (Ed.): Vorarlberg Chronik. Retrieved April 25, 2014.
  4. Tobias Neubacher:  Green energy for the country - The professionalization of state election campaigns of small parties using the example of the state election campaigns of the party "The Greens" in Vorarlberg in 1999 and 2004.  Diploma thesis, Salzburg 2010.